Post Cancer!

It has been 1 1/2 years since Emily finished her cancer treatment.  She is doing great.  She has gone back to her kibble diet (Holistic Select, anchoive, sardines and salmon formula), continues to get one fish pill, one cranberry pill, 2 gloucosamine and 2 75mg Zantac daily (her tummy has always caused her troubles) and now she's on a senior vitamins from Only Natural Pet Store.  She no longer plays the same but she loves her treat ball and I've gotten her some treat related toys to play with.  Nina Ottosson makes some great toys and they are available on Amazon. 

Emily's eyesight has gone downhill significantly and so has her hearing.  Neither were great before the cancer.  She looks for us around the house so we have to be mindful of her and reach out to her when she's searching or looking which way to go.  Overall she loves her cuddles but whines when things aren't as she expects them.  She did alright during her bath this weekend but she whined the entire time she was on the grooming table.  She's a 11 1/2 and have been getting groomed her entire life.....  She knows whining gets her no where when it's time to get groomed! 

We've had a ton of snow this winter and that has been hard on Emily.  She used to plough right through it but this year I had to dig her paths around the yard. 

 

Overall she's still a happy girl and we're so grateful she's still with us.

Emily on the left, Ollie on the right.  They snuggle now!



Post Cancer Treatment Update

I realize I haven't provided an update on Emily's saga since I went back to work.  Well here it is.

Emily finished her chemo on Sept 5th.  We had a few delays due to late delivery of the drugs, a couple of bouts of tummy troubles (Emily has had a sensitive tummy since she was a pup when there was ground corn in her diet) and then right before the 2nd to last chemo treatment Emily got a big 'ol UTI (Urinary Tract Infection).  That UTI has been more trouble then her cancer!  But I digress.

I'm going to do a separate post about Emily's post chemo care.  I found when we were nearing the end of her treatment there was very little written about what to do next.  Emily's amazing and wonderful vet Dr. Courtney Sherlock and I figured it out.  I want to do a separate post so that if dog owners in the future are looking for this topic they may be able to find information about our experience when they do a search.  I'm a geek to the end.

So now it's been 2 months.  Emily is not the same girl she was before the cancer and/or the treatment.  She became an old dog overnight.  Her eyesight was never very good and she's been developing cataract for years.  She's just gotten over an ear infection that seemed to seriously affect her hearing although I'm still quite sure half the time she's ignoring me.  That hasn't changed.  She's been ignoring me her whole life.  She sleeps a lot and when she's asleep she's sound asleep.  I vacuumed the other night right around her and she didn't move!  That's new.  She also doesn't run upstairs when I sear something on the stove.  That used to send her running (usually because the smoke detector goes off shortly after - it's in the wrong place, it's not my cooking I swear).  These days she beats herself out easily. 

Okay now all the good things.  Emily is so full of joy.  I've never seen her little stub wag as much as it does these days.  After her treatment ended it was like her body knew and suddenly she was back to being the carrot junky she always was.  During treatment carrots were off the menu because they were too high in carbs and remember, cancer cells live off of sugars which carbs are.  She still loves to play ball in the yard and walk her duck around the house.  Her appetite is veracious.  She sings, cries, howls while waiting for her supper.  She is a complete and total snuggle bug, wanting to touch me all night long.  She does snore more than ever and has active dreams which often result in repeated kicks during the night.  Now it's just harder to wake her to get her to stop. 

Emily has also changed from being a determined working dog to a social butterfly.  In the past she would be more quick to react to a situation and do her job (protect/defend).  Now she's sits back and assesses if there's something in it for her.  She eats up attention whenever she can get it.  No more aloof Bouv!  At the vets, in the exam room she was all waggly stub for the vet and all the girls even though she was anxious. She never used to be anxious at the vets but after 26 chemo treatments her opinion of their establishment as changed.  Luckily they are moving so maybe her negative feelings will stay with the old place. 

Her biggest struggle aside from the veracious appetite is due to the UTI and some kidney issues, both of which are completely clear now.  She has become somewhat incontinent.  She can't hold it when left alone for longer than a couple of hours.  I put puppy pads around when we go out but of course she rarely hits them.  My neighbor comes out to let her out at regular intervals when we're gone for longer periods of time but it seems hit or miss.  It's fine as long as Emily sleeps the whole time we're gone but if she gets up she has an accident.  I was home with her for 2 full days last weekend and she didn't run for the door to go out as soon as she got up so we think it might be anxiety.  She does look for someone when she wakes up and I see her more and more relying on Ollie.  And Ollie is okay with that.  We were at the cottage a couple of weeks ago and Emily fell off the dock.  As she swam to shore Ollie walked out to meet her.  It was quite cute and Emily was quite proud of herself for solving her own problem.

Total cost for this treatment was over $7000 of which the insurance covered 80%.  That does not include the cost of her homemade diet and treats which is costing me about $120 a month. The treats are for both her and Ollie.  Treats include veggies, cooked chicken hearts, cooked beef heart, frozen chicken wings and necks. 

I take every day as a blessing knowing that some day she'll be gone.  Although I don't think that day will be very soon.  She just had a complete blood work up and urinalysis and she had had a ultrasound 2 months ago.  All clear, everything is normal.  The vet used the word 'excellent' more than once!  So was this worth it.  Yes it was.  Yes it was indeed. 

Ms Emily as a Cheerleader for Halloween.

Ollie as a Rufferee and Emily

 

Me and Ms Em doing selfies at the cottage.

Feelin Groovy!

Just a quick update on Emily.  She's doing really, really well.  Great appetite, tired but playful and cheery.  Last week at the vets she was the real Em, all over the place, interested in everything, the vet tech (who is also named Emily!) had to chase her around the vet office to get the IV out of her.  She tires quickly but when she's going she really gives 'er! 

Currently she snuggled up in my lap while her beef cooks for her meals.  We're 2 days late getting her chemo this week due to a late delivery of the drug to the vets.  It's the nasty Doxirubicin.  I've got her as well fortified as I possibly can.  She's eating the cooked ND diet sprinkled on her meals which are full of protein in the form of meat and yogurt, as well as eggs with a little garlic, turmeric, cabbage, broccoli, spinach, peppers (veggies well cooked so the canine gut can digest it!) and supplements of FortiFlora (a vet product that has the optimal probiotics for dogs), arginine, glutamine, gloucosamine, digestive enzyme and her daily multivitamin.  I'm making sure she get 2 - 4 ounces of organ meat a day.  It's full of iron and other nutrients that are good for blood development.  Her white blood cell count was a little low last time.  I also make sure she gets some of her cabbage juice to help fortify the gut.  She's also getting some pumpkin, just a tablespoon, once a day to help keep her bowels functioning well.  After she is well over any side effects from the Duxirubicin I'll put the pumpkin on hold as it's high in sugars/carbs.  It's a bit of an experiment at this point...  I'll do an update of her diet as a blog post in the near future. 

Emily's eating has changed as she's gone through treatment.  One thing I do is keep everything separate and labeled with the date cooked.  That way if she's off one thing I'm not worried about wasting a whole pile of food or giving it to Ollie who doesn't need it.  If she's off something I can freeze it to keep it until she is back to her full appetite. 

Things have gotten so much easier.  Thank goodness!

Feeling secure that I've made the right choice for Ms Em,
CJ, Emily and Ollie

Why We Do What We Do.

No one has asked me why I've chosen to treat Emily's cancer.  Well at least no one has been brave (or stupid) enough to ask me to my face...  Here is why I've chosen to fight Emily's cancer.

This is the pure joy that has been part of Emily's life for as long as I can remember.  She destroyed one other duck when she was a pup but she's had this one ever since.  How may dogs have a 9+ year old toy!?

Here is another reason why I've made this choice for Emily. 

For those of you who don't know I lost my last 2 dogs to cancer.  In both cases it was hemangiosarcoma which has a poor prognosis even if caught early.  I lost Willie in a matter of days and Dakota in a matter of hours. Dakota left us exactly 10 weeks before I noticed the lumps in Emily's neck.  I didn't have a choice to even consider treatment.  God wanted them home. (You'll notice in Emily's video that there is a white urn on the bookcase behind her, that's Willie.  Dakota's dark wooden urn is next to her.)

I've had a wonderful furry face in my life since I was 9 years old.  There were a couple of years I was dogless and when I look back they were probably the most difficult years of my life.  Dogs just make life better.  No matter how bad your day has been, no matter how you feel or what's going on, having a dog to come home to, to have that unconditional love is such a gift.  My life is just more full because of the wonderful creatures who've shared it with me.  And who continue to share it with me. 

Emily is ready to go for her treatment tomorrow.  I really do think all the challenges she's faced have been related to that massive GI bleed she suffered the week before her first chemo treatment due to the introduction of Prednisone and an Antibiotic together.  Her system was compromised and never fully recovered before we started the assault with the chemo.  She could end up with chronic Irritable Bowel Syndrome until this is all over.  We'll watch and treat it as necessary.  Right now she's having a nap after enjoying her pork/liver/cabbage/Hill's ND diet for breakfast number 2.

Gearing up for tomorrow's treatment,
CJ, Emily and Ollie

Oops. Sorry. It's all my fault.

Well I screwed up royally this past weekend.  I had taken out some chicken thighs to de-skin and boil for Emily.  Things defrost super slowly in my fridge so I had left them out on the counter.  By the time I went to cook them the skins where almost room temperature to my touch.  The thighs themselves where still a bit frozen inside.  I took the skins off and had to keep sticking my hands under warm water just to get the skins off all the thighs.  I was taking the skins off so that when I cooked the thighs they would be a little leaner for Ms. Em. 

However........  I have always given the dogs fat and skin bits when I've been breaking up big pack, big pieces, deskinning or deboning meat.  So I put the skin aside to put in Ollie's meals.  He sees what Emily is getting and his plain old kibble just won't do.  I have to add a little something to make it more interesting.  Luckily it only takes a little tidbit of something yummy or a bit of meat juice and he thinks he's got a feast! 

So I had this leftover chicken skin and Emily wasn't eating any veggies since her last chemo session on Tues (already know where I'm going with this??) so I thought, "hey, how about I mix some of this raw chicken skin with some veggies and maybe she'll eat it".  Guess what? She picked out the chicken skin and left the veggies behind.  (and you know she was thinking - "I'll show that crazy bitch!" cause she's a bouvier and I'm pretty sure that's what they think all the time anyway.)

So that was Saturday.  Sunday she has some runny poo.  I gave her some Kaopectate which is liquid and a nightmare to give.  More ends up on Emily, the floor and the walls then actually gets down her throat.  And then we had more runny poo.  Notice how I'm calling it runny poo and not diarrhea?  Yup, denial.  It ain't just a river in Egypt.

She ate fine and everything else was good, including her mood.  Monday morning I got up and Ollie had the runs too.  Kaopectate for everyone!  He had one more bout and he was done.  Emily got worse.  Still in denial.  I should have called the vets by this point but I half assumed they were closed for Easter Monday.  Monday night she went downhill fast, needing to go outside about every half hour, unsteady in her hind end, trying to lay out in the cold, damp yard.  It was amazing to see how easily Ollie's healthy system could handle the bacteria versus Emily's immuno suppressed cancer system trying to handle the same thing.  This is why we cook Emily's food or she gets fish directly from the freezer.  The one exception is her chicken wings which go right from the freezer to the fridge to defrost, only a couple at a time and she's limited to 2 per day.  So far they haven't cause her any problems and I had been watching that for the first couple of weeks. 

We went to the vets Tuesday for Emily's week 7 treatment and agreed with the vet that it was not wise to overload Emily's system that was already dealing with diarrhea by subjecting her to chemo.  So due to my stupidity Emily has to wait a week for her next treatment. 

Moral of the story is Cancer dogs are immunosuppressed.  All the precautions I've read about are worth taking.  Period.

Luckily one dose of the Metron and she's doing great.  So we caught it soon enough that her system hasn't been totally taxed.

Trying not to add to the dog's suffering,
CJ, Emily and Ollie

Week 6 Vincristine

Just a quick update to share how Emily is doing.  She handles her week 6 treatment of Vincristine very well.  I gave her the anti-nauseant for 2 days after her treatment.  She went off veggies, peanut butter and sardines but still ate smelts so go figure.  Today she had her multivitamin in peanut butter, she's had her ND diet every day and is eager to eat so I didn't bother giving her the Cerenia (anti nausea pill) today.  They make her very drowse and they are very expensive so I don't want to be handing them out whilly nilly! 

Yesterday she was playing with her treatball and lost her footing while in the kitchen.  I heard her whine and when I went in her 2 back legs were going in different directions and she couldn't get up.  It was very frightening to see.  Emily as a Bouvier, is a working dog and can get very focused on a task.  We have to monitor her and make sure she doesn't over do it.  She had beat herself out yesterday and was still trying to work even though her body was ready for a rest. 

One thing I have noticed now that Emily is no longer on the Prednisone is that some of the foods I thought she liked she was only eating because the Prednisone was making her ravenous.  I thought she liked pumpkin but since her Prednisone was reduced and now no longer part of her treatment, she turns her nose up at it.  Which is fine.  I only gave her pumpkin to try and regulate her bowels. 

Overall it's happy days around here.  I think the dogs may have a marrow bone to enjoy on this sunny Good Friday (I'm pretty sure the no meat rule only applies to humans!) although I may save it for Easter Sunday as we're going to brunch and may need something to entertain the dogs with after when all I can do is lay around and moan from the over eating...

Enjoying the long weekend,
CJ, Emily and Ollie

A Normal Sunday!



We're enjoying a peaceful, relaxed Sunday afternoon around here.  It's so nice to have a couple of 'normal' days.  

 

Emily enjoying a nap.  I realized she should be wearing a yellow bandanna for cancer.  I'll have to get some fabric and make her one.  Note she's lying on a mat!  I think she's starting to embrace the mats which not only help her get up although that steadiness is greatly improved, they also help her with pressure points where the fur is gone.

 

Ollie is waiting for his cup of tea and a cookie (not really but I always think that when he sits on the couch and hangs out with us)

Emily is eating everything at the moment.  She's getting all her supplements.  I'm trying to get her well fortified for her next round of chemo.  I hadn't really thought of the chemo treatment as occurring in rounds, I was seeing it more as one continual treatment.  So when she crapped out week before last I was in a panic as I saw it as a reaction to her treatment overall instead of her body being in overload as we finished the round. 

I really had no idea what to expect.  I had read a great book ("Help your dog fight cancer" by Laurie Kaplan) and numerous sites but I still wasn't prepared to see Emily so sick.  Like I mentioned in my last post, they say dogs handle the chemo much better than humans.  Which is a whole level of hell I simply can not imagine.  I've never been around anyone actively going through chemo.  At least as we go through this round I'll be more prepared and not think this is the end of Emily's time on earth.  I'll remember how she has bounced back this time.  She's still not 100%, she does still have cancer after all.  She tires more easily and occasionally she looks at me like she's a little confused and she's not completely steady on her feet but she's Emily and I can clearly see her in there.

I had a thought today.  Emily has huge cataracts on top of the fact that her eyesight has never been great.  She seems to lack a degree of peripheral vision.  I looked into her eyes today and said "Emily you're going to live to a ripe old age, blind and a bit confused".  I don't know why I thought that.  I guess because she'll be 10 by the time this treatment is over and if she lives another year that will put her at 11 which is a good for a Bouvier.  Anything after that will be gravy.  I have always worried that she'd end up blind or with a significant loss of sight as she ages.  Today I just had a strong feeling that we'll see that, that she will be here long enough.  I just hope the chemo treatment doesn't leave her with too many long term effects.  I know they have refined it over the years but still... 

Enjoying the good days and preparing for the next round of ups and downs,
CJ, Emily and Ollie (who still doesn't know what all the fuss is about!)